The Hungarian parliament approved Sweden’s accession to NATO on Monday (February 26). This marked the last hurdle on Sweden’s path to becoming the 32nd full member of the military alliance.
After 20 months of waiting and delays, the Hungarian Parliament, led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP majority, voted with a large majority of 188 votes for Sweden to join the transatlantic alliance.
Sweden applied to join the Western military alliance in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine just months after the invasion began. In doing so, it ended its long-standing tradition of neutrality.
Hungary’s interim president Lásló Kövér now has five days to sign the document. It will then be brought to the United States and handed over to the US State Department, the official custodian of the accession records of all NATO members.
The following steps are mainly bureaucratic in nature: Sweden’s accession will be announced by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and a joint flag-raising ceremony with the other 31 military allies will take place at NATO headquarters in northern Brussels.
Sweden will then have to reorient its military strategy and NATO its defense and deterrence plans to include the Baltic Sea and the Nordic country.
“Sweden’s membership will make us all stronger and safer,” said Stoltenberg, welcoming the news.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán agreed: “Sweden’s accession to NATO strengthens Hungary’s security.” His Swedish counterpart was happy about this news.
“A historic day. All parliaments of the NATO countries have now voted for Sweden to join NATO. We are ready to assume our share of responsibility for NATO’s security,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X, more than 20 months after applying for membership.
However, Hungarian approval was not a foregone conclusion in advance.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland jointly applied for NATO membership in May 2022. Finland became the 31st member of the alliance in April 2023, almost a year later.
Sweden, on the other hand, struggled for some time to gain the approval of NATO members Turkey and Hungary.
After Turkey ratified Sweden’s accession to NATO in January, Hungary remained the only NATO member that had not yet given the green light to join. The ruling Fidesz party repeatedly delayed the vote, citing Swedish criticism of the rule of law in Budapest.
The delayed Hungarian vote comes after a major military agreement between Hungary and Sweden last Friday (February 23). The agreement will see Hungary purchase four more Swedish-built Gripen JAS 39 fighter jets and extend the current support and logistics contract by 10 years from 2026 to 2036.
Since, according to the contract, the negotiations have been running since 2021 and no specific hurdles have been mentioned, it remains unclear how the agreement fits with Sweden’s application for NATO membership.
Sweden’s NATO costs
As Sweden joins NATO, the financial burden that the country will bear remains a key question in Stockholm.
“Sweden’s direct contribution, which will be used, among other things, to finance the NATO headquarters, would amount to 600 million Swedish krona, which is equivalent to about 54 million euros,” Per Olsson, defense economist at the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI), told Euractiv .
However, according to the expert, the indirect costs are more difficult to estimate. These include, in particular, the costs of restructuring certain sectors of the Swedish Defense Forces or replacing the personnel that Sweden has to send to the Alliance headquarters in Brussels.
However, Sweden is already considered a model student. The country has already reached the defense spending target of two percent of gross domestic product for NATO countries.
“Last year Sweden spent around ten billion euros on defense, which is in line with NATO targets,” said Olsson. Even before joining NATO, the country decided to increase investments in defense in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
At that time, the Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and her Defense Minister Peter Hulqvist spoke out in favor of reaching the two percent mark of gross domestic product. At that time, the majority of public opinion was not yet in favor of joining NATO.
Sweden’s accession to NATO is also favored by the high level of military-technological compatibility between the states of the transatlantic alliance and Sweden.
“As the Swedish defense industry wants to sell weapons to other NATO countries, Sweden has used many NATO standards and has a high level of interoperability with NATO countries’ technologies,” Olsson explained. As examples, he cited the European Meteor missiles with which the Swedish Gripen fighter jets are equipped and the compatible caliber of artillery shells.
“It shouldn’t be too dramatic a change for the Swedish economy,” concluded Olsson.
[Bearbeitet von Aurélie Pugnet/Nathalie Weatherald/Kjeld Neubert]